A36322:329
The mourner directory, guiding him to the middle way betwixt the two extremes, defect,…The mourner directory, guiding him to the middle way betwixt the two extreams, defect,…
The mourner directory, guiding him to the middle way betwixt the two extremes, defect, excess of sorrow for his dead to which is added, The mourners soliloquy / by Thomas Doolittle ...The mourner directory, guiding him to the middle way betwixt the two extreams, defect, excess of sorrow for his dead to which is added, The mourners soliloquy / by Thomas Doolittle ...
London: printed by J.A. for Tho. Cockeril, 1693
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
14 Q. Hath any thing befallen you, that hath not been the common Case of all the Generations before you, will shortly be of all this Age, and of following, except those that shall be found alive at the Coming of Christ? And would you have your State to be singular? Or if it be not, will you be sullen?
15 Q. Could your Relations Souls have gone to Heaven, if their Bodies had not died? Or would you have had them never lodged there, except as Enoch and Elijah, without seeing Death? If the Soul could not have been happy above, except the Body dyed, and took the Grave in its way to Glory, are you excessively troubled for a dead Body, which must be, for the greater advantage of the Immortal Soul?
15 Q. Could your Relations Souls have gone to Heaven, if their Bodies had not died? Or would you have had them never lodged there, except as Enoch and Elias, without seeing Death? If the Soul could not have been happy above, except the Body dyed, and took the Grave in its way to Glory, are you excessively troubled for a dead Body, which must be, for the greater advantage of the Immortal Soul?
16 Q. Would not you have been as loth to leave them behind you, as now you are sorrowful they are gone before you? And will you be pleased neither way? Would you have died all together? You are sorrowing now for Wise and Children, because removed by Death; and if God had laid you upon a dying Bed, ⟨p. 208⟩then your trouble would be for them, if alive, because you are like to be taken from them, and say, What will my small Children do if I die? And what will their Mother d• when their Father leaves the one Widow, and the other Fatherless? I could have been glad if God would have spared my Life, to have seen them well brought up. It is hard for you to say which would be less trouble to you, to leave them behind you, or have them go before you. But if you have that which you had rather have, why do you so sorrow, when you have that which is best for the rest of your Family.